HHonors membership was easy I called the number on the back of the card and they gave me a new HHonors number right away. You can also link an account if you already have a number. This also can be registered online if you don’t like calling anyone.

So my trusty O-4 partner in travel and life is on TAD to Washington DC and reports back on what the Gold Hilton HHonors status gets you at the Hilton Washington DC/Rockville Hotel & Executive Meeting Center. Usually you need 40 nights, or 75,000 base points to earn gold status, but you get it for free for active duty via AmEx Platinum. First thing she got was coupons for breakfast as well as two bottles of water. Before you even arrive you get to select you gift on the HHonors website under “My Way Hotel Benefits”. Hilton has way to many brands and for each brand you get different choices. For example:

This is the most bizarre program. Yes, you will have to choose between Two bottles of water per stay and Pepperidge Farm cookies or 250 Hilton HHonors® points per stay at the Homewood Suites by Hilton. In the case of my wife she went with the breakfast and it was awesome:

The other bizarre benefit is you can gift this breakfast to any other registered guest of the hotel. She has not picked her breakfast buddy yet!

So there you go, AmEx Platinum and HHonors Gold gets you the benefit of not being hungry or eating alone! However it doesn’t stop here! You also get the strange fringe benefit of a fridge/microwave in your room:

I think her conference booked her a double queen and her gold status got her upgraded to a deluxe double queen with club access.

This room is just a double queen with access to the 8th floor club level Potomac Lounge every Sunday 4:00pm through Friday 1:00pm. Apparently no weekend access. Which is quite strange indeed. Here are some photos of the lounge:

Oh and free WiFi with the gold! So the best part of AmEx Platinum is I look like the hero, but it didn’t cost me a dime since she is Active Duty. Even if she was my dependent wife she would also get these benefits for free as AmEx waives all fees for Active Duty and their dependent authorized user cards. So my brother and mother have one of my AmEx authorized user cards and he has elite membership in Enterprise, SPG as well as Hilton. The only benefit we share is the $200 travel credit.